


Burn

by willows_shame



Series: Peaks and Mountains [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Pearl, Attempted Sexual Assault, Dubious Consent, F/F, Gem Fusion, I'm Bad At Tagging, most of the characters aren't super important honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:46:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26799049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willows_shame/pseuds/willows_shame
Summary: "This was what Rose wanted. This was what made her happy.And so Pearl complied, even if it burned with a different burn than Rose’s loving kisses—an ugly burn, deep in the cavity of her chest where a heart would be if she were human. She complied, and reciprocated, and when she found that it pleased Rose to hear small sounds of her “pleasure,” she mimicked the ones Rose herself made. She grew adept at hiding the choking disgust, the trembling of her limbs, the faraway distance of her mind, because this was good. This was Rose. This was her Rose."Pink Diamond's pearl, Rose Quartz's pearl, her own pearl. Pearl's journey through two relationships and embracing her own asexuality.
Relationships: Garnet/Pearl (Steven Universe), Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe)
Series: Peaks and Mountains [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1955239
Comments: 14
Kudos: 49





	Burn

**Author's Note:**

> hi! here i am again :)
> 
> there's some pretty rough stuff in here, i'm gonna be honest. there's a couple mentions of some pretty negative thoughts that i didn't tag (pearl briefly wants to be poofed, not for the sake of pain but for the sake of rest, and at a certain point she says she wants to be shattered. she doesn't actually want that, but she does say it), so once again, if anyone thinks i should change up the tags and mention more things, please let me know. i want everyone to be safe while reading.
> 
> disclaimer: i do not own any of the characters or places depicted in this work. it's all rebecca sugar and the other steven universe peeps.
> 
> happy reading!  
> \- willows_shame

It was not uncommon, on Homeworld, to catch sight of pearls soaked through the manifested cloth between their legs. It was a show of strength, of dominance, that some lower-caste gems who were able to afford pearls would put on, laughing with their cohorts as they showed the fruits of their teasing. It was easy; a pearl, of course, would never disobey her master, so of course she would spread her legs and let her owner rub her through her dress or leotard until the evidence of her body’s function was visible.

White did not know if that had ever happened to her. She suspected it hadn’t, though of course she wasn’t sure if she’d belonged to anyone before White Diamond, and she didn’t even remember her time with that most elite of the elites. But Pink Diamond never touched her like that, and Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond left their pearls alone, and White’s replacement…

Well, she was something else.

During one meeting between the diamonds, when White Diamond was the only one to keep her pearl by her side, White heard Blue Diamond question her choice to keep the toy there, in this deeply important discussion, and White Diamond’s only response was a laugh before the door closed behind the three pearls. “Poor Pink,” Blue whispered softly.

“Was I like that?” White asked.

The pearl her companions referred to as “Pink” was anything but; she was white and gray, perpetually smiling, and White had only rarely heard her speak. She didn’t seem to be in control of her own self, not even as little as any other pearl was. Her right eye—a pearl’s only mode of conversation when they were forbidden from speaking—was blank, the left cracked and useless, and her vacant behavior scared White, the way she must have changed because why would Blue and Yellow call her Pink if she’d always been monochrome?

“No,” Yellow said. “You were yourself. Though you’re changing, too, White.”

She shrank in on herself as much as a pearl was allowed. “Am I?”

Blue smiled. “It’s good. Your diamond is kind.”

And kind Pink Diamond was. White’s minor faults and missteps were allowed and looked over, and her diamond would even speak to her at times as if she were a real gem. Yellow and Blue, when they had chances to speak with White, would show an odd mix of jealousy and fear that White wasn’t quite sure what to do with. Her diamond was perfect. She, as a pearl, could not disagree with this. But if her diamond was perfect, and yet so different from her fellows, so different from the gems that slid their hands along the bodies of their servants and laughed crudely, what did that mean for other gems? Were there so many ways to be perfect? Or was perfection merely an illusion?

White never dared speak these thoughts aloud, not even to her closest (and, truly, only) companions. Should they escape, be heard by any of the diamonds or even just a passing quartz, she could be rejuvenated again, as she had been to join Pink Diamond’s service, or, worse—she could be processed.

So she kept silent, and observed. Homeworld, she began to believe, was not the kindest of worlds to live in, for any gem. She listened to the laughter, watched smiles, heard excited chatter and witnessed camaraderie, and yet…none of these gems were truly happy. White accompanied her diamond, on some trips to the garden where she would play with her best friend Spinel, and wondered at the simple gem’s manufactured joy, at the way it seemed to affect their diamond less and less over the orbits. What was this world, White wondered, if its only goal was towards expansion, and there was never a moment to explore the things around them that they already had in their grasp? What was the point of their endless lives, if moments of euphoria were fleeting and left behind only emptiness?

But orbits passed, and White served her diamond as best she could, for she was only a pearl. She only rarely met other pearls, as the diamonds only rarely left the palace, and if they did, it was to check on colonies. Pink Diamond herself had none, and so the only times she left the palace were to visit Spinel. At times, when her diamond was being punished for one transgression or another, White was left in her darkened rooms, waiting for cycles on end for her diamond to return. Every time she did, she would sit quietly, and ask White to run gentle fingers through her hair, to remind her that she still existed. White did not know what she went through in that tower. She never asked.

On the cycle Pink Diamond was told by Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond that she was to be gifted her first colony—the planet Earth—she began to plan a ball in celebration, to be held three cycles hence. This would be far from the first ball White had attended as Pink Diamond’s pearl, and so, of course, she assumed it would be the same as all the rest—she would stand, with Yellow, Blue, and Pink, to the side and behind their diamonds’ thrones, silent and still as pearls were meant to be.

And that was how the ball began.

That was not how it ended.

White did not know why only three quartzes approached them—perhaps they were as unnerved by Pink’s emptiness as the pearls were—but she was lost in thought, not noticing them until there were strong red arms around her, one pinning her arms to her body, one slipping down and lifting her skirts. She heard Yellow yelp, “Let go!” and then the sharp sound of a slap, and an amethyst’s voice hissing, “Pearls are to be seen and not heard.”

Then she couldn’t hear, couldn’t think, couldn’t see, because the carnelian’s hand was between her legs, and why did this feel so wrong? There was something awful coiling in her chest, behind her gem, in her stomach, she felt a roil of feeling in her throat, like something was trying to crawl up and push its way out of her mouth and she _hated_ this she wanted it to stop what were they thinking why were they doing this—

There were two flashes of yellow lightning to her left, and then one that zinged so close to her she felt its heat on her cheek. The hands that touched her were gone, and the telltale sound of a gem clinking to the ground could be heard. White looked up.

Yellow Diamond was standing from her throne, one hand still outstretched towards the pearls. She glanced them over for one moment longer, then turned to the crowd of silent gems, and said, “Let this be a warning. The next gems to lay even a finger on a diamond’s pearl will be processed immediately. This ball is over.”

White was in a daze. Pink Diamond dismissed her for the cycle, saying “I know you must have somewhere to go. Somewhere safe? Please, Pearl, find somewhere to rest.”

White didn’t know if her diamond knew of the tunnels through Homeworld’s underground, the tunnels pearls frequented while on errands for their owners, the tunnels that kept them from the harassment aboveground. Perhaps she simply hoped for her pearl—but that was ridiculous. Pearls did not deserve such care.

She wandered aimlessly through the tunnels, searching for a nook she could fold herself into until she stopped shaking, and only stopped when she heard Yellow’s voice. She followed it to one such nook, where she could just barely make out the shapes of her fellow pearls, Yellow twisting her hands in front of her, so different from the confident and proud pearl of her diamond. “Please, Blue,” she gasped out. There were tears in her eyes. White was startled; pearls did not often cry (other than Blue, who was enveloped in her diamond’s aura frequently enough that tears were common), and she’d _never_ seen Yellow stoop so low. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It—it’s only supposed to be you, I— Take me. I need—I need your hands, not theirs, I need it to be you, I need—”

And Blue shushed her gently, and drew her closer, and angled her face to kiss her. “Anything for my Yellow,” she murmured as she pulled away, and her hand slid down Yellow’s body, marking the same trail the amethyst’s had.

And White crept away.

What was this, she wondered? She was not a fool. During her observations she’d seen hundreds of pearls touched like they had been during the ball. She’d come across one or two couples or groups of other gems, real gems, giggling in corners. She’d seen kisses, stolen, quiet, often enough to understand that while they could be frowned upon, they were not amongst Homeworld’s greatest illegalities. And yet she somehow hadn’t thought of what it would feel like. She hadn’t thought that there could be any enjoyment in this, this thing that seemed almost a punishment for pearls. But if Yellow was asking Blue for this—if gems did it with each other—

White eventually found herself a nook, and once she had settled back into it (once she was certain no other pearls would come her way for a long while), she slowly lifted her dress.

She knew of this part of her body. It was a strange addition, that she’d always thought. What was its purpose? Gems did not consume “food” for energy, like some organics on the diamonds’ colonies did, and therefore did not need a passage through which to dispose waste. Gems did not birth young, like those same organics. Why, then, did they contain a cavity surrounded by soft skin, this place that grew wet when touched—or White could only assume it did, could only assume the pearls she saw dampened had produced the moisture themselves. This was where the carnelian had touched her. This was where Yellow had begged Blue to touch her. Was this…good?

But when she slowly, guiltily, reached down to press her fingers against herself, she only felt the same roiling feeling, the same disgust and fear, and she pulled quickly away, dropping her skirts, wriggling herself farther back into the nook and relishing the rough stone rubbing against her shoulders and back. No, she thought. No.

Time passed. Her diamond’s initial joy at the conquest of her first colony began to fade, and though a part of White wondered if it was the lack of her little friend (why hadn’t Pink Diamond brought Spinel with them?), she worried that it was something deeper, something missing. White had always felt that _something missing_ in herself, and she recognized a longing in her diamond’s eyes that made treasonous thoughts of similarities rise like fire in her mind until worse thoughts of Pink Diamond’s burning beauty invaded as well. She couldn’t help herself. When Pink Diamond wished aloud to be able to be on Earth itself, to witness the emergence of the newest amethyst soldiers, White imagined with her, and was unwittingly drawn down to the planet’s surface, where, she soon found, her life would change forever.

* * *

There was a time of careful balance. Who was she? Was she White, Pink Diamond’s personal pearl? Or was she Pearl, The Terrifying Renegade Pearl and Rose Quartz’s right hand gem? Was she a silent, docile servant, or was she a talented swordsperson and friend to all the Crystal Gems?

She was both.

She changed forms as often as her diamond did, shifting her outer layer of clothing from the flouncing, ruffled dress of White to the more practical gear of Pearl. She said nothing to Yellow or Blue when Pink Diamond met with their masters and the three pearls were together again, never quite sure if they knew of her double life but suspecting they did—pearls were insignificant to all but each other.

And so the war went on, unending, monotone. She never gave up, of course. She could never give up, while her diamond, her quartz, the gem she was (terrifyingly, burningly) coming to love did not. But this final request…

“Are you sure this is the only way?” she asked for what felt like the thousandth time.

“I’m sure,” Pink Diamond said.

And so she shape-shifted into Rose Quartz, and drove a sword through Pink Diamond’s middle, and everything changed again.

She lost White, just as Rose lost Pink Diamond. She watched the Homeworld ships retreat with a bittersweet joy, for they had won, they were free, and yet…she would never see Blue or Yellow again. She would never see her home again, awful as it may have been to her and her kind. Everything was different now.

And then, suddenly, Rose was pulling her close, pulling Garnet close, and there was a terrible white light and—

Any joy was gone.

The bitterness coating her tongue was all that remained.

They were the last ones: a rose quartz with a secret deep in her gem, a pearl whose hands forced her to keep that secret, and a fusion who struggled and failed to stay together with the loss of every single one of their friends.

They split, for a time, each wandering the planet on their own, and Pearl felt more lost than she ever had in her existence. She came across Sapphire once, just under a century after the end of the war, and the small gem held Pearl’s hands in her own, and kissed them before moving on to wander as aimlessly as Pearl. She wondered if she’d ever see Sapphire again—if she’d ever see Garnet again.

She did.

Garnet found her, somehow, carrying with her a stunted quartz soldier whose words were limited to those she’d heard spoken. “She must’ve emerged after the diamonds’ attack,” Garnet said, and Pearl almost cried at the sound of her soft-spoken friend, at a voice when she’d heard almost none for five hundred and seven years. Garnet was holding the amethyst propped on her hip, her face tilted down towards the scrappy gem, what parts of her cheeks and lips Pearl could see under her visor soft and gentle. “Poor little over-baked beauty,” she murmured, and Pearl felt something in her relax.

They stuck together, after that, teaching Amethyst and searching for Rose. It wasn’t too difficult to find her; Rose loved the inhabitants of this planet openly, and stories of her majesty spread quickly over its surface. When Pearl saw her for the first time in over five centuries, she thought she might cry.

Rose did cry, held all of them tight, even this small, unknown and bright-eyed gem. They talked for hours, Amethyst crawling from Garnet’s lap to Rose’s to Pearl’s, until the little purple gem grew bored and tugged on Garnet’s arms, asking with her minimal language to explore. Garnet scooped her up, and nodded to the others. It was a full nod, Pearl thought. It was trusting them to still be there when she returned. It was asking them to talk to each other. It was understanding that they had a history that they should—would—act on.

It was teasing.

Pearl clasped her hands together, stared down at her lap. There was movement as Rose came closer, the feeling of her fingers burning under Pearl’s chin. “My pearl,” she murmured.

 _My diamond,_ Pearl could not say.

And Rose kissed her.

Rose, of course, was the one to suggest they create a permanent home. “We can still wander,” she said, “together and alone, and—there are the corrupted gems. We can save them, I know we can. But we need a base, a place to return to when we need to heal, a place to keep bubbled gems until we can heal them. We need a home.”

And so they built the Crystal Temple.

It was there, in Rose’s room, on a bed of clouds, that Rose Quartz touched Pearl for the first time.

They were laying together, in between missions and lessons for Amethyst, content in this place that they had made, that would soon feel more like home than Homeworld, and they were kissing. They had never truly discussed their relationship; as shakily acceptable as romance was on Homeworld, the idea of a pearl engaging in it—let alone with her master, not to mention a _diamond_ —was more taboo even than fusion. And yet it felt so right to Pearl, their kisses, their gentle touches, the way Rose would pull her into a dance even when they were not fusing into Rainbow Quartz. They were building a new world alongside the construction done by its natives, and no taboos need apply.

The Crystal Gems had gotten used to fusion, not only because Ruby and Sapphire rarely separated (in fact, after finding Amethyst, she had not at all), but also because it became a strength that Homeworld could not fight against. Ruby fusions, even amethyst and jasper fusions, were nothing against the towering gems that love and friendship amongst the rebels formed. So fusion was no longer new, to Pearl.

But so many other things were. And so many things were the same. She was free, Rose said she was free, and yet at the end of the day she could never say no to the gem that had once been her master, her _owner_. She told herself it was because of love, it was because of devotion, and it had nothing to do with the power of a diamond over her pearl. And she believed it. All she wanted was to make Rose happy.

So, in her room, when Rose’s hands wandered lower, when Pearl’s mind flew back to the ball centuries before, Pearl said nothing. When the nausea and anxiety returned at the brush of Rose’s fingers against her core, and the press of them inside her, Pearl said nothing, because Rose was smiling so softly, and she was so beautiful, and this couldn’t be the same as the carnelian at the ball no matter how similar the feelings were, because this was Rose, and Rose’s lips were brushing butterfly kisses over her face, her hair, her gem.

This was what Rose wanted. This was what made her happy.

And so Pearl complied, even if it burned with a different burn than Rose’s loving kisses—an ugly burn, deep in the cavity of her chest where a heart would be if she were human. She complied, and reciprocated, and when she found that it pleased Rose to hear small sounds of her “pleasure,” she mimicked the ones Rose herself made. She grew adept at hiding the choking disgust, the trembling of her limbs, the faraway distance of her mind, because this was good. This was Rose. This was her Rose.

Pearl sometimes wondered if Rose’s trysts with humans began with her. Was it her fault? Was it that one attempt to divert Rose’s attention, a night on the hill above the temple, when their stargazing was interrupted by Rose’s hands? Pearl had mumbled something about wanting to see the stars, and Rose had joked that she wouldn’t block Pearl’s view, sliding down her body until her face was level with her thighs? Had she finally noticed?

But that couldn’t be it, Pearl thought, because no matter how many humans she dallied with, she always came back to Pearl.

“Humans are different, down here,” she said once, rubbing her fingers through the dampness between Pearl’s legs.

Pearl brought her focus back to Rose, to her lovely face. She’d been far, far away—as far away as possible. “Hm?”

Rose giggled. “We’re closer to human woman. But they’re less sensitive, except for a tiny organ higher up.” She moved the tips of her fingers to demonstrate, and Pearl gasped to make her smirk. “They’re different inside, too,” Rose said, slipping inside, curling her fingers back. Pearl swallowed. “Here, they have a spot that makes them see the stars.” She laughed again. “They don’t get as wet as we do, and it’s thicker.” She raised her hand to her mouth and licked her fingers.

Rose told her of human males’ anatomy as well, encouraged her to shape-shift, to experiment with her Rose, and Pearl did so, despite her distaste for transforming (especially after that final transformation, that horrible thrust, the terrifying intimacy of holding that pink diamond in her hands), for all she wanted was for Rose Quartz to be happy. And though these times were even worse than others, messier, stickier, Pearl kept her silence.

And centuries passed.

And now, this latest human tryst was drawing Rose further from Pearl than ever before.

There was a part of her that was grateful for the humans; if Rose was playing, was experimenting, with them, she was not doing those things with Pearl. But with this man—with this _Greg Universe_ —something was different. It took Pearl weeks to recognize it, to see her loss for what it was, and when she did, she couldn’t help a small gasp.

“What is it?” Garnet asked.

They were standing in the entrance of the temple, watching their leader move away from them, hand in hand with her human man, and Pearl brought one hand up to her mouth and brushed her fingers against her lips. They felt cold. “She’s stopped kissing me,” she whispered.

She felt shallow. This Greg would die eventually, or Rose would get bored of him, and she would come back to Pearl. She always came back to Pearl. But this felt different. This felt…like she’d chosen Greg over Pearl. Permanently.

Garnet’s hand touched her shoulder, brought her back into herself. The touch was warm. Ruby’s gem. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Later, Pearl would wonder how much Garnet knew, then. What had she been apologizing for? Pearl’s loneliness, feelings of abandonment? The knowledge that soon she’d lose her love forever? The knowledge of how that loss would come about? There was some small, quiet part of Pearl that knew that her relationship with Rose was not perfect, that Rose herself was not perfect, but how could that piece of her speak up when suddenly Pearl had less than nine months to reconcile herself with the fact that the love of her life, her companion for thousands of years, would soon disappear into nothingness, forever.

Forever.

Forever was an interesting concept for gems; in general, gems on Homeworld existed forever, unless they broke a great law or disrespected the wrong gem. Forever wasn’t even really thought about. If a gem was poofed, in some sort of accident or at the rage of a superior, they’d be back in mere cycles, small physical changes the only difference in their forms. Forever was…

Forever meant shattering. Forever meant nothingness. Forever was something no gem dwelled on for long, if they could help it.

And suddenly Pearl had to come to terms with forever.

She was there, of course, with Greg and Garnet and Amethyst, when Rose gave up her physical form for the last time and left behind a naked, squalling infant. But she could only look at the child for a moment, for long enough to see that pink diamond embedded in his stomach, before she had to turn away, before she ran and hid herself in her room in the temple, unable to handle this great, crushing, freezing loneliness.

Garnet and Amethyst gave her space for six weeks.

Then Amethyst crept into Pearl’s room, found her lying on her side on top of the highest fountain, and curled against her back, small arms wrapping tightly around Pearl’s middle. Garnet must have sent her, Pearl mused.

“Hey, P,” she said after a long time, and her voice was a low rasp.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said.

She felt Amethyst shrug. “Keep going,” she said. “Keep finding corrupted gems. Help Greg take care of Little Rose.”

“Steven,” a soft voice corrected her, and Pearl closed her eyes as Garnet joined them. The fusion gathered them both in her arms. “His name is Steven.”

“I can’t do this,” Pearl said, and she knew the words were half gasp, and she clung to Garnet so hard her fingers hurt. Amethyst tightened her grip on Pearl in turn, somehow knowing she needed it, needed the pressure, but it wasn’t enough, and Pearl let out a sob. “I can’t—I can’t—I don’t kn-know—what I am without h-her, I’m _nothing_ without her I need her I can’t be—I can’t do this shatter me shatter me _shatter me_ —”

Garnet shushed her gently, rocked her, held her, and Pearl wept, cradled in the arms of the last remaining Crystal Gems, for what could have been hours, or days, or years.

But time went on.

The boy—her son—Steven—grew slowly, but years were nothing to gems. They and Greg built a human dwelling at the entrance of the temple when it became clear that Steven would need to live with them, and Pearl wondered, when he took the first step over the threshold of his new home, when she had begun to love him. She’d thought she never would, at first, but somehow—sometime—he’d won her over as easily as his mother had.

She learned how to care for him. She learned how to cook human foods, and though she still loathed the taste and process of eating, she grew to enjoy cooking, especially baking pies. Garnet helped her set up the washing machine on Obsidian’s palm, and Pearl learned to fold each of Steven’s shirts, every pair of his pants, with perfect creases. It was as she folded one such pair of pants, several months after the boy had moved in with them, that she had a thought that distracted her so greatly that her hands stopped, hovering with the little jeans hanging limply in the air.

Was this the same?

Had she merely swapped one master for another, one set of rules and duties and responsibilities for another?

No.

No, of course not. Rose hadn’t been her master for millennia, hadn’t ever _really_ been her master at all because Rose was not Pink and Pearl was not White. And even with the shaky doubt of that thought, the suspicion she always held but always pushed back that if Rose had asked her to jump she would have asked how high, Pearl was certain. Because this—cleaning up after Steven, tucking him into bed, comforting him after nightmares and scrapes and bumps—this was so different. This, like with Rose, was love, was heat, but it was a different love. It didn’t burn with that sometimes terrifying intensity.

It warmed.

* * *

Pearl was gem enough to recognize that she was growing and changing. She noticed her confidence ebbing and flowing, she noticed the setbacks, the little acts of service that she was never sure were of her own free will. She knew intimately the abject and reasonless terror, the way her form would sometimes demand air in too-quick bursts despite her oft-insisted comment that gems did not need to breathe, the moments when she was frozen still and could not move. She knew the moments when the gag order was present in her mind, when her hand would start to creep up and she would force it back down, always trusting because Rose knew what she was doing.

Rose always said gems couldn’t change.

But they did. _She_ had, she was perhaps the greatest instance of that. Pearl wondered if Rose had waved aside the idea of her own growth, the growth of her fellow gems, because it was mental and emotional—not physical. As the Crystal Gems and Greg celebrated Steven’s thirteenth birthday, Pearl considered the boy’s growth, her own, Amethyst’s, even Garnet’s. They did change. They did grow. Perhaps they hadn’t started small and helpless physically, as Steven had, but still they grew.

In that, Rose was wrong.

Pearl thought she knew herself by this point, despite this growth and change. She was a pearl, and yet she was not; she was a Crystal Gem; she would always love her diamond, Rose Quartz; she would always love her boy, Steven Universe; she fought for the planet Earth. She had her insecurities, her moments of indecision, but at the end of the day, Pearl knew who she was.

Which was why it came as quite a surprise when she fused with Garnet for the first time in decades and found that she had slowly been falling in love with the fusion for centuries.

Fusion was intimate, to Pearl, in a way sex never was. That was not to say it was inherently romantic—of course not. She fused with Amethyst, who was more like a sister or ward than anything. She’d fused with countless Crystal Gems, in the name of the rebellion. Rainbow Quartz, of course, had been different, but…Sardonyx had been too.

Perhaps it was the implicit trust Garnet had, to allow an unknown factor into Ruby and Sapphire’s relationship. Perhaps it was the fear that Pearl couldn’t be good enough, at fusion, and that brand of love and comfort, when compared with this couple who were experts. Perhaps it was because Sardonyx was the only fusion, other than Rainbow Quartz, that Pearl had formed for the first time completely by accident.

But Pearl was now realizing it may have been something different.

This realization hit her in the moment between the end of their dance and the meld of their minds, the white light and the blurring of their forms, their selves, and Pearl was wrapped in Garnet’s very essence and a heat spread through her she thought she would never feel again, and she almost lost control of the fusion in her shock because that burn was familiar—

Sardonyx loved existing.

She was vaguely aware of the urgency, of her components’ fears and determination, but above all she was a performer, and she had an audience. Yes, perhaps she teased Amethyst a bit more than was necessary, showed off a bit too much for Steven, but it was her first time being _her_ in so long, and she wanted to savor the feeling for as long as she could. When they separated, Pearl was buoyed by the aftermath of her ecstasy, and she laughed in pure joy alongside Garnet because that had been _fun_.

It was only later, when they’d returned to the temple and Pearl had retreated into her room, that she allowed herself to consider that heat.

She sat under a waterfall, let its thunder lull her, and remembered.

Later, she wouldn’t quite be sure what had possessed her to do what she did. She’d been afraid, scared of these new feelings that weren’t new, this burn that she had promised (to herself) was only, would only ever be, for Rose. She’d been unsure—perhaps this was only the haze of fusion, the closeness, the intimacy. She needed to fuse with Garnet again, to get this silly thought out of her head.

But what had she been thinking?

The weeks of silence, of clipped words, cut into Pearl deeper than any gem’s weapon could. She felt stupid, weak, was reminded yet again that she was _just a pearl_. And through this all—through searching for Peridot until she was exhausted enough to sleep even though she rarely did, through training until her form was weak and close to poofing because she had to be better, through spending hours curled alone in her room, thinking punishing thoughts because she was such a _fool_ —she was bombarded with memories.

How had she not seen before?

In the very beginning, she had to admit, she’d been nervous around Garnet, not disgusted, perhaps, as the Homeworld gems were, but wary. That had changed quickly, of course. Garnet had become her closest friend other than Rose—no, her closest friend, because Rose was never her _friend_. Rose was her diamond, her leader, her lover, the gem she was closest to in all of existence, but she had never been her _friend_.

Garnet was so different.

And Pearl had ruined everything.

She saw Steven’s sadness, Amethyst’s frustration, she saw when they began to avoid the beach house almost as much as she did. She came back from a mission, one night, to find the house and temple empty and dark—they were all gone.

There was a thrust of irrational horror; they’d left her, they’d realized she was nothing but a tool, a servant, a slave, defective, wrong, selfish, weak, a burden on them an anchor holding them back useless useless _useless_ —

She didn’t know she’d sunk down against a wall until there were hands on her upper arms, and she could feel Garnet’s gems and the wood against her back and she dropped her head with a choked whimper.

Garnet sat with her, in silence, until her trembling had eased and her gasps for useless air had subsided to nothing. Then she rose without a word, and Pearl didn’t open her eyes until a flash of light behind her eyelids and the tinkle of the warp heralded the fusion’s exit.

And then Pearl cried.

And then, after over a month of this weight in her chest that Pearl could not for the life of her explain in words, she made yet another mistake, another mark in the long, long line of them, and now there were walls closing in around her body as well as her mind, and there was only one thing that could save them.

Sardonyx knew her components needed to talk.

But now was not the time.

They returned home as the sun was setting, and Pearl tucked Steven into bed with a smile at his grin, because of course Steven, optimistic, happy little Steven, thought everything was better, everything would go back to normal.

Pearl waited until he was asleep, until the beach house was silent and Amethyst and Garnet were deep in their rooms in the temple, and then quietly opened the door and slipped out into the night.

She walked for miles along the beach, staring up at the moon and out at the waves, until, eventually, she found that she had been stopped in one unremarkable place for some time. She sat, and hugged her knees to her chest as tightly as she could, burying her chin between them so only her eyes were above her arms.

And there she sat, staring vacantly at the waves as they crashed against the sand again and again, until she became aware of a figure standing just behind and to the right of her. She tensed, tucked her face further down, and mumbled, “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough.” Garnet’s quiet voice barely carried over the sound of the waves, but Pearl, as she was coming to realize, had always attuned her ears to Garnet as she had to Rose. Garnet lowered herself to the sand beside Pearl, touched her shoulder gently, and continued, “Long enough to know you’re not really here.”

Pearl didn’t look up, refused to look up, because she didn’t deserve this. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Garnet said.

“I’ve ruined everything.”

“Not everything.”

Pearl shook her head without raising it. “I should never have done it. If I hadn’t we would have caught Peridot by now.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Can you?” Pearl asked, finally looking up. “Did you see us catching Peridot?”

Garnet’s lips tightened. “Before what you did?”

Pearl nodded.

Garnet turned her head, gazing out at the ocean. “…You don’t want to know the answer to that.”

Pearl felt sick. She buried her face again, dug her fingernails into her forearms, wished she could turn back time, wished she was anywhere but there…she considered asking Garnet to poof her, so she could at least spend some aimless time floating without the sharp intensity of every one of her thoughts, of every failure and flaw—but that would be being selfish again. “We never should have fused,” she whispered without thinking.

Garnet’s hand tightened on her shoulder, then lifted away, and Pearl curled tighter in on herself. “Don’t say that,” Garnet said even more quietly than before, and Pearl straightened, startled, because she knew Garnet well enough to know she felt hurt. Garnet was hugging herself now, still staring at the ocean, the corners of her mouth turned down. Pearl wished, fleetingly, that she could see her eyes—the visor always made her so impassive. She remembered the beginning, when Garnet hadn’t worn a visor at all… “I love fusing with you, Pearl,” Garnet said, and Pearl’s attention was snapped back to the present. “You were right. Being Sardonyx is fun. It’s different with Sugilite, because you’re right, Amethyst and I lose ourselves in her in a different way than with Ruby and Sapphire and me. But Sardonyx…is an experience. And I love that experience. I would never take it back.”

Pearl fought tears. She had cried too much over this, over her own mistakes. Maybe that was the most selfish thing—that she was here feeling sorry for herself when Garnet, to whom fusion was life, was _everything_ , had been betrayed by her, was hurting because of her. “I’m sorry,” she said yet again.

Garnet turned towards her, brushed her hair back with the hand containing Ruby’s gem. “Pearl…”

But Pearl couldn’t look at her.

She heard the telltale sound of Garnet phasing away her visor, and then her voice, so soft, so gentle, said, “Look at me, Pearl.”

And so she did.

And Garnet cupped her face in both hands, and said, “I love you, Pearl.”

And Sardonyx opened her eyes.

She hugged herself, for once content without an audience. She rose, and spun in a circle, leaping forward to dip her toes in the froth of the waves where they met the shore. She danced and considered her existence, her components, and the feelings with which they were struggling to reconcile. Pearl, she thought, had always served Rose Quartz, had always loved Rose Quartz, and was frightened of this new love, so different, so unknown, that burned so similarly. Garnet had never known any love other than her own; she was already a fusion made of love, shouldn’t she herself, the relationship she was born of, be enough? Shouldn’t she know?

Sardonyx gave a little sigh, and tutted. Silly gems. They really did need to talk, not about her, not about the past, but about them and the future. She stretched once more to the moon, twisted her torso around once, and then gently prodded her components out of fusion.

Pearl was cradled in Garnet’s arms, her body angled against gravity, as she had been the two times they’d unfused at the Communication Hub. She was afraid to open her eyes, afraid of what she might see—had Garnet replaced her visor? Did Pearl want her to? What was going to happen next?

“I’m scared,” Garnet whispered, and Pearl’s eyes snapped open. All three of Garnet’s were closed, her brow furrowed, her mouth _almost_ trembling. “I don’t know this.”

“You don’t know what?” Pearl asked, just as softly, the words more shape than sound on her tongue.

Garnet opened her eyes. “Can I kiss you?”

Pearl stared.

She thought of Rose Quartz, of Pink Diamond, of thousands of years—she thought of Garnet, of those same thousands of years and the fourteen after them—“Yes,” she breathed, and Garnet’s lips met hers.

* * *

Garnet’s hands were wonderful.

Pearl had never really thought on them, before, but now, now when casual touches were so much more frequent and felt so much less casual, when she and Garnet would dance simply for the sake of dancing and Ruby’s gem would press warm against her waist, Sapphire’s cradled coolly in her palm, and Garnet would dip her low with a shy grin, Pearl loved Garnet’s hands. They were strong and soft, powerful and loving; they encompassed everything Garnet was.

They wandered, now, in a way they hadn’t before. They hadn’t explicitly told Amethyst and Steven about the shift in their relationship, but Amethyst, at least, likely suspected. She, unlike Steven, had known that it would still take time for the two of them to move on from what had happened at the Communication Hub, so when, in the days after they lost Peridot at the spaceship, Pearl and Garnet only grew closer, Amethyst probably guessed why.

Or, at least, she stopped appearing unannounced in Pearl’s room, which left Pearl and Garnet time alone that would not be interrupted. Garnet would hold Pearl in her arms, would run gentle fingers through her hair, over her cheeks and lips and gem, and Pearl would close her eyes and smile.

On missions, things felt exactly the same—and so different. Pearl felt that urge, similar to what she’d felt with Rose, to leap in front of Garnet whenever they faced danger, but she held back, because Garnet could take care of herself, and she wasn’t holding a dangerous secret that would be revealed if she were to be poofed. And—as Garnet was teaching her every day—she was her own gem. She was important. She was worthy.

And so their relationship on the battlefield remained a push and pull, offense and defense, and they protected themselves and each other in equal measure, moving around each other with a new fluidity that Pearl _loved_. It felt like a dance—a deadly, deadly dance—it reminded Pearl of the reason she’d started with swords. Even Steven noticed, commenting on it and saying he was glad they weren’t mad at each other anymore, and Pearl and Garnet exchanged a look and smiled. Amethyst snickered behind them, and Pearl knew her cheeks flushed, but Garnet’s smirk was worth it.

It was all so new, for both of them. Garnet had never engaged in any romantic relationship that wasn’t her own existence, and she was exploring feelings that were hers alone, which was fascinating in an objective way. Of course Sapphire and Ruby loved Pearl, but it was different. It was like the way Pearl loved Amethyst. Garnet’s love for Pearl was romantic, burned in them both, opened their eyes to so many new experiences. They talked about this, about the two of them and Ruby and Sapphire and Sardonyx, and about hundreds of other things. They communicated in a way Pearl and Rose never had—and they talked about that too. When Pearl wondered at something Garnet did for her, something Garnet said, had the same newborn awe that Garnet did, Garnet asked why—hadn’t she and Rose done the same things?

“This is different,” Pearl always said. “This is new.”

It scared her, a bit, how different this was. She had loved Rose, so fully, so completely, and it scared her when she compared her relationship with Rose to her relationship with Garnet and found herself happier now. “Rose meant well,” Pearl told a waterfall, cradling the first sword her diamond had ever gifted her. “Rose always meant well. She loved me. I loved her. That’s all that should matter.”

 _Rose hurt you,_ that quiet voice said. _Rose used you._

She ignored the voice.

It didn’t matter now, anyway; Pearl had Garnet, and Rose was gone, and a dead gem could do no wrong or harm. The past was the past. They had Steven now, and sometimes it felt like more had changed in the past fourteen years than the six thousand before that. Pearl had certainly changed more.

But, of course, some things never change.

Pearl and Garnet were in Pearl’s room, hidden by a waterfall, surrounded by gentle thunder, and Garnet’s wandering wonderful hands were everywhere. There was a certain energy in them, a life that Pearl loved so much, that came through Garnet’s gems and warmed Pearl all over every time they brushed her skin. It was nothing, of course, compared to the heat that roared in her when their lips touched as they were doing now, when they kissed and Pearl could feel _everything_. Garnet’s kisses were as expressive as her hands, and so Pearl knew, with that all too familiar tightening in her chest, when they changed.

When they strayed to Pearl’s jaw, and then her neck.

When her hand dipped lower on Pearl’s waist.

Some things never change.

And so Pearl recalled the sounds she used to make, the movements, the responses, and she ignored the ache and the twist and the anxiety that was so familiar and yet seemed so much sharper now, when she hadn’t felt it in almost twenty years. She shoved back the disappointment—this was _normal_ , this was _expected_ , what had she thought would happen—she shoved back the guilt, the sickness, the way her fingers felt cold, she ignored the fact that if she had a heart it would be pounding. This would be fine. This was Garnet. She loved Garnet. She could do this for her.

But then the lips on her skin paused.

And then the hands were gone, and Garnet had pulled away. “I’ve made you uncomfortable,” she said.

Pearl half sat up. “Wh-what, no, how would you have made me uncomfortable?”

Garnet regarded her. “I know you better than that, Pearl. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” She shrugged. She had always been good at this. Lying about anything else? She was awful. A terrible actor. But this? This and Pink Diamond’s secret? Rose had never noticed. “Why did you stop?”

“Because you wanted me to,” Garnet said, and Pearl was struck dumb because for some reason she couldn’t refute her.

It was true, of course; she _had_ wanted Garnet to stop. But that didn’t matter. Sex was normal, healthy, it occurred even on Homeworld where things such as fusion and so-called “defects” were unacceptable. It was a thousand times more copious on this planet, and gems like themselves picked up countless Earthen habits and qualities, even during the war—why not this one? Sex had become normalized to society. Sex had become normalized to them. Pearl had done this thousands of times with Rose. She would (with luck, if they survived the looming threat of Homeworld’s interest) do it thousands, millions of times with Garnet. She could accept that.

Garnet sat up too. “Why didn’t you ask me to stop?”

Pearl opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again.

“Pearl?”

“You wanted to,” was all she could say.

“That doesn’t matter,” Garnet said, frowning. “If you didn’t—Pearl I never want to force you into anything.”  
Pearl laughed. Her hands were shaking. “You weren’t forcing me into anything! I—I was…I was doing it, I…”

“Pearl.”

“It’s for you, i-it’s not, I’m just saying that if you want it, you can have it.”

For once, Pearl wished that Garnet’s eyes were covered with her visor, because they were wide and sad and—scared? Why in the world would she be scared? “Pearl. I don’t want to take that from you if you don’t want to give it! It’s not about what I want. It’s about what we _both_ want. It—it’s about communication. It’s about what our entire relationship is based on. It’s about _consent_. You don’t owe me anything, I don’t _deserve_ anything from you because of anything, I _want_ you to tell me no if I do something you don’t like. I want you to trust me to still be here. You know me, Pearl. I’m not going to leave after one disagreement. I didn’t leave after the Communication Hub, and I won’t leave now. I want us to always be comfortable around each other to say whatever we need to say. I want you to feel safe with me. It’s okay if you’re not ready, it’s okay if it doesn’t happen tonight, it’s okay if you want to wait a week or a month or a thousand years. I’ll still be here. We’ll only do it when we both want to.”

And Pearl was speechless.

This was so different. This was so new. She’d thought Rose had known her better than anyone in the universe, but Garnet was proving her wrong every day. She’d thought—she’d thought—

“What if I never want to?”

It slipped out; Pearl covered her mouth instinctively with her hand, the same way it would happen involuntarily if she tried to talk about Pink Diamond. Those were her secrets. Those were her shames. She stared at the floor, tried not to cry, tried not to look at Garnet who would surely leave her now because what was _wrong_ with her? It was just sex. It was just…

Hands. Soft, warm and cool, running gently through her hair and then cupping her cheeks. Tipping her face up. Garnet’s eyes were so gentle, so loving. “Then we _never_ have to.”

And the tears spilled over.

They didn’t talk about it then.

They didn’t talk about it until much later, until after Bismuth had been released and then re-bubbled, until after they’d cried together, alone, because in some ways the two of them were truly the last Crystal Gems.

But finally, as Garnet brushed the last tears from Pearl’s eyes, she asked quietly, “Why did you think you had to?”

Pearl knew immediately what she meant. She wished she didn’t.

“Did Rose—”

“Rose never did anything wrong,” Pearl said, and thought of Bismuth and Pink Diamond and wars and shatterings and— “Not with me,” she clarified, though that too was a lie, because over the past year she had wished so many times that she could tell at least Garnet about her old master.

Garnet was frowning. “Did you and Rose ever do anything like that?”

“Of course,” Pearl said, flushing.

“Did you want it then?”

Her words weren’t accusatory. They weren’t hurt. They weren’t asking silently if Garnet wasn’t good enough. They were simply asking for her.

Pearl shrugged. She knew the answer. She suspected Garnet knew the answer. But saying it out loud would be admitting that something had been wrong.

Garnet sighed, and pulled her closer. “She shouldn’t have done that.”

“It was fine,” Pearl said. “It’s still fine.”

“She should have known.”

“I didn’t let her.”

“ _I_ noticed.”

What was Pearl to say to that? She tucked her face into the crook of Garnet’s neck and closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

Pearl shook her head, her nose brushing against Garnet’s skin. “I can still do it, if you want. Don’t you see? I did it for her because I loved her.” And wasn’t that a revelation? A single letter cementing Rose’s place in her _past_. But this was about Garnet. “I can do it for you, because I love you.”

“And I love you too,” Garnet said, “which is why I will never ask you to.” She coaxed Pearl’s head up, made her meet her eyes. And they were gentle, and cautious, but they also danced with a flame of mischief. “Besides,” she said, a slow smirk spreading across her lips, “I don’t need that to make your gem burn.”

And Pearl flushed, and smiled wide.


End file.
